Historically, television content has been based on a business model of a common network programming media content being pushed to a mass nationwide audience. Local network television broadcasters had the option of inserting local advertising in some of the commercial breaks or perhaps pre-empting the network programming for local programming. Still, the effect was the same of pushing a common content on a mass audience, thought limited in a geographic region.
Past efforts in “interactive T.V.” have focused on a variety of “interactions” including an interactive television programming guide, video-on-demand, pay-per-view, and Internet web pages displayed on the television. These latter efforts have maintained a clear difference between the web pages and television programming. The Internet content typically appears in a separate PIP-format window overlaying or next to the television program.
What has been lacking, however, has been a means to seamlessly merge the two content sources. What is needed is a richer television viewing experience that provides customized, personalized, interactive enhancements that can take advantage of today's and tomorrow's higher broadband connectivity with alternative multimedia content sources and low-cost, powerful graphics and multi-media image processing technology.